Earlier this month, the Texas chapter of the anti-LGBTQ hate group MassResistance hosted a “pro-family conference” featuring a variety of anti-LGBTQ activists like Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, Brian Camenker of MassResistance, and Robert Oscar Lopez, who runs the Texas chapter of Camenker’s group.

Sharon Arkme, who claimed that she was a victim of anti-Christian persecution when she was denied certification in a master’s program she had enrolled in at Texas State University “because I would not agree with their LGBT agenda,” told attendees that LGBTQ advocates are warring against “Christ and Christians” and “brainwashing our children.”

“I did not realize the full agenda of the radical left,” Armke told the audience. “They are in a war with Christ and Christians, whether we realize it or not. They are not content with society and Christians treating them with outreach, courtesy and respect that should be given to any other human being just because they are human. They want us to approve their behavior. They will not stop until they dominate.”

“They intend, and they are very successful so far, in brainwashing our children to believe that sodomy is right and good,” she continued. “We are trying to show parents what is happening to our children and, excuse me if I say this, we should be screaming bloody murder in the streets. We should be screaming bloody murder in the street. This is not right! … Those teachers that do this, that teach sodomy to little children, many people call them child abusers and I agree.”

“I learned the hard way the true agenda of the radical left, it’s domination of our children and our culture,” Armke fumed, eventually growing so upset that she couldn’t even finish her remarks, simply declaring “may God have mercy on us” as she walked off the stage.

I couldn't find anymore information on this Armke except for on the Mass Resistance webpage which claimed her stance kept her from becoming a principal.

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Donald Trump is a disaster as president, which we all knew he would be. His poll numbers are "historically low" his present and former subordinates - particularly Michael Flynn - are in a constantly growing scandal about Russia's influence on last year's election, and he is a generally uncoordinated laughing stock here and abroad.

Of course one wouldn't know this if one read the glowing tributes he is given by several religious right groups such as the Family Research Council and the American Family Association:

And let's not forget Franklin Graham's advice to that Trump not reveal his tax returns.

So why are these folks, who are so quick to talk about values and morality, are as easily quick to give Trump a pass on both? An article in Politico reveals what should be obvious:

The one group Trump has paid outsized attention to—and consistently delivered for—is the social conservative movement. He reinstated and even toughened the Mexico City Policy, which eliminates U.S. funding for international nongovernmental organizations that perform abortions. He rescinded President Barack Obama’s protections for transgender students to use preferred bathrooms in public schools. He signed legislation that routs federal money away from Planned Parenthood. He cut off funding to the U.N. Population Fund, which critics say has long supported coercive abortions in China and other countries. He stockpiled his administration with pro-life evangelical Christians in critical roles, including Tom Price as secretary of Health and Human Services, Betsy DeVos as education secretary and Mike Pence as vice president. And, most significantly, his Supreme Court pick, Neil Gorsuch, a conservative originalist in the mold of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, won confirmation.

. . . “How ironic it is,” says Ralph Reed, president of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, “that Donald Trump, of all people in the Republican Party, would become a champion for social conservatives.”

. . .After eight years in which conservatives—and particularly evangelical Christians—believed themselves to be under siege from secular forces in the federal government, the judiciary and popular culture, Trump’s presidency feels like a renaissance. Not only do they have a seat at the table again, as they did during the famously evangelical-friendly George W. Bush years; many of these activists say Trump has already surpassed the 43rd president as an ally and advocate.

“The Bush administration didn’t come close to being this friendly to social conservatives,” says Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America. (“Who knew?" she adds, laughing. “I can’t say I would have ever guessed that a billionaire playboy from Manhattan would wind up being the closest ally of Christian conservatives.”) ( Family Research Council president Tony) Perkins, for his part, tells me: “I’ve been at the White House for meetings more in the first four months of the Trump administration than I was during the entire Bush presidency.”

I should be disturbed by this, but to tell the truth, I'm not. Sometimes, it's a good thing for your opposition to get all that they want because they tend to reveal themselves to be exactly what you have said they are.

It's one thing to label a pig as a glutton. But dumping a pile of food in front it and pointing as the pig sloppily chows down sends a better message. In that same regard, Trump giving the religious right so much power isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just watch how quickly these groups and their personalities abandon their masks of propriety and show themselves to be what the lgbtq community has always said they were - gluttonous fanatics trying to maneuver the country to their direction.

We see this now in how much religious right leaders are fawning and lauding over Trump while he sinks lower and lower. With every revelation that Trump is a devil, here they come with another pair of plastic wings and slightly bent halo to take the glare off of the new debasement. And another spritz of goody-goody God spray to cover up the smell of Trump's sulfuric depravity and incompetence.

It was never about preserving values with these groups. It was always about control by any means necessary - a smartly cynical value but one unbecoming of those calling themselves Christians.

As much as I despise Trump, the one thing he is doing right is figuratively giving the religious right enough rope to hang themselves. And with the speed of the direction they are going, they won't wait for the chair to be kicked from under them.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

One of the most powerful weapons in the arsenal of the anti-lgbtq right is language. It's relatively easy to refute their lies when compared to demonstrating how religious right groups and personalities exploit semantics in their attempts to control the narrative of debates about the lgbtq community.

The following from the anti-lgbtq hate group Family Research Council advertising an anti-transgender event is a perfect example. Watch how the organization brands transgender children as dangerous outsiders and their parents as nonexistent without even directly saying those words:

There are so many dog whistles in this announcement, one wonders if the Family Research Council has a side business as a kennel.

Everything in this vile announcement practically paints transgender children as outsiders. So transgender children don't exist? They are an ideology instead of students? They are a lobby instead of children whose lives are hindered by fear and ignorance?

And what about the parents of transgender children? Apparently according to the Family Research Council, they don't exist either. The parents who will be supposedly "fighting back" are parents of so-called normal children. And let's not forget the taxpayers. Parents of transgender children don't exist, so how on Earth can they be taxpayers?

The fact that the Family Research Council has invited no medical professionals to this meeting goes without saying. That fact is merely rancid icing on top of this stale cake of transphobia designed to scare people rather than educate them about transgender children.

Demonizing children is a nasty game, but the Family Research Council seems to have no problem playng it.

An Orlando-based religious liberties group has filed a complaint against a Hillsborough County high school teacher, accusing her of denying student rights to religious expression while promoting an LGBT agenda.

In a letter to Hillsborough schools superintendent Jeff Eakins, the Liberty Counsel alleges that Riverview High math teacher Lora Jane Riedas barred at least three students from wearing Christian crosses on necklaces in her classroom, claiming they are "gang symbols."
The organization also claims Riedas takes part in LGBT political activism in the classroom.
"Ms. Riedas clearly seeks opportunities to engage in GLSEN-directed classroom activism, which has called on teachers to use its "Educator Guide" to promote GLSEN's views about homosexuality and gender confusion on "Day of Silence," and to do so this Friday, April 21, 2017," Liberty Counsel president Mat Staver wrote in his letter.

The school district is investigating the case and the principal has said she has not received any complaints from any parent or student.

"What we have here are two lesbians that are promoting and indoctrinating the LGBT agenda in the classroom to their students," Staver tells OneNewsNow. "Punishing those that don't agree and targeting Christians because they won't accept her radical lesbianism."

And just in case you are not clear as to where One News Now's sympathies lie, the publication is also running a poll on the controversy:

So basically, the Liberty Counsel and One News Now is attempting to spin this situation into one in which an "intolerant radical lesbian teacher made Christian children remove their crosses while in her classroom."

That rendition tends to play better should Fox News's resident religious right liar - Todd Starnes, decides to push the story further, or the Liberty Counsel needs to exploit the incident for fnndraising, or GOP Congressional leaders need another "reason" in their quest to get Trump's signature on an anti-lgbtq "religious liberty" executive order.

Say hello to the future if some Congressional leaders can persuade Trump.

Republicans in Congress push for religious liberty executive order - If the religious right were smart, they wouldn't be pushing so hard for it. It's beginning to look like to me that the wish for "religious liberty" as they want it is a classic case of "be careful what you wish for because you might just get it." Once the repercussions come for secular businesses having license to discriminate against lgbtqs, there will be some VERY unhappy folks. And Trump is no fool, at least for now. The protests against his immigration nonsense would pale compared to the hell this sort of thing would unleash. Cause you know when it comes to expressions of outrage, the lgbtq community don't play.

Monday, April 24, 2017

It's not a secret that various religious groups and figures are eager for Trump to push their issues (i.e. anti-lgbtq religious liberty, conservative SCOTUS justices), but it's getting embarrassing to watch how some of these supposed purveyors of values stoop to justify Trump's failures and unethical missteps.

First, there is Franklin Graham, who out the following Facebook message encouraging Trump to not reveal his taxes:

Should President Donald J. Trump release his tax returns? A lot of liberals keep demanding it. The President hasn’t asked for my advice, but I would say—No way! Even if these were published, the average American—or the average politician, including Senator Chuck Schumer, for that matter—wouldn’t be able to understand them. President Trump is a billionaire with multiple businesses in multiple states, using our very complicated and corrupt tax code that Congress is responsible for writing—that should be scrapped. It would just be another huge distraction, and a media frenzy, which is exactly what his enemies want. We don’t need distractions. We need to let President Trump focus on what America elected him to do. We need to get on with the business of solving the problems facing our nation—Forget the tax returns! We need a simple tax code that all Americans can understand

In spite of Graham's claims of the contrary, it's more than just "liberals" who want Trump to release his taxes. According to an April 10 edition of Money magazine:

A new Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll found 53% of voters say Trump should be forced to release his tax returns, and 51% say Trump’s taxes are either very or somewhat important to them. Additionally, 45% say Trump’s taxes are relevant to his job in the White House.

Late last week, the Human Rights Campaign announced a new project calling out the transphobic lies of infamous former Johns Hopkins professor Paul McHugh. McHugh has been a long-time opponent of the transgender community. His anti-transgender claims have been criticized for lack of veracity, but the religious right and their supporters still cite him.

. . .the HRC Foundation launched McHugh Exposed, a website that pulls back the curtain on the anti-LGBTQ myths and junk science being peddled by Dr. Paul McHugh, the go-to ‘expert’ for anti-equality extremists. The resource includes a detailed timeline of how McHugh’s hateful and damaging essays have been used to target and attack LGBTQ people and a new video featuring renowned LGBTQ health expert, Dr. Tonia Poteat. It can be found at www.McHughExposed.org.
McHugh’s false, non-scientific assertions have been used by anti-equality activists in state legislatures and courtrooms to defend discrimination against LGBTQ people.

. . . “Paul McHugh’s writings continue to dangerously undermine the safety, security and wellbeing of LGBTQ people, and particularly transgender youth, across the country,” said Mary Beth Maxwell, HRC Vice President for Research, Training, and Programs. “McHugh’s junk science is still being referenced in legislative and legal battles despite the fact that Paul McHugh has no academic expertise in either gender or sexual orientation, and actively avoids publishing any of his anti-LGBTQ pieces in peer-reviewed journals. Policy makers, informed citizens and parents deserve to know that this is junk science and personal opinion - not at all in the mainstream of current medical and academic research and not endorsed by Johns Hopkins regardless of how McHugh uses his title to suggest credibility or expertise.”

HRC also launched a wonderful video (seen above) which throws "shade" at religious right groups and their phony "policy experts," i.e. the spokespeople they employ to go on news programs and in front of state and federal legislative bodies to spread their homophobic talking points.

This overall project by HRC is the latest endeavor by progressive and lgbt organizations to expose conservative and religious right groups who push lies and junk science against the lgbt community behind the facade of "religious liberty."

Thursday, April 20, 2017

One of the pleasures of having this blog is the ability to amplify the issues of those in our community who deserve as much visibility as I can give them.

Such as our kids. Friday marks the annual GLSEN's Day of Silence in which high school students across America take a vow of silence to bring attention to how lgbt students are bullied . To me, this year is more poignant because of who-shall-not-be-named being our president and how he turned his back on our transgender kids while the religious right are busy portraying them as predators.

And I am glad to hear that this year's Day of Silence will culminate in an effort to urge state governors to push for full lgbt inclusive policies with an emphasis on protecting transgender youth.

More than ever, our lgbt, especially our transgender youth, need ways to make their faces be seen, their voices be heard, and to know that we have their backs.

So basically this is what needs to be learned. It's all about who is being heard and seen in the black AND lgbt community, just like other communities. While I think Crawford is an idiot, before anyone starts going on a tangent about the supposed homophobia in the black community, answer this question. How many high profile lgbts of color do you see or hear, if any, in both the black AND gay communities. They are there, but are you paying attention to them? Or better yet, is there ANY focus on them. Yeah, yeah yeah. RuPaul, etc. BUT who else? And is there a diversity in the black lgbt voices and faces you see and hear? Not all of us are entertainers or singers. Some of us are community organizers, intellectuals, etc. Also, before you ask the dreaded "how can blacks be oppressive when they were oppressed themselves" question, let me ask you a question. Why do you fail to acknowledge the fact that some people are both black and gay? We aren't talking about separate communities. Unfortunately, we are talking about two communities which, either overtly or covertly, will not recognize the fact that lgbts of color exist. As long as neither community will acknowledge their commonality, i.e. lgbts of color, ignorance like Crawford spewed will be prevalent in the black community because there will be very few to challenge it. An lgbt of color doing this would have more resonance and credibility in the black community. Instead, white lgbts will wring their hands and speak ugly about the black community without realizing such thoughts and words only add to the problem.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

So while anti-lgbt hate group the Family Research Council is celebrating Neil Gorsuch becoming a SCOTUS judge, helping to cause all sorts of anti-transgender mayhem in Texas, and basically indulging in its usual attempts to make the lgbtq community second-class citizens under the guise of "religious liberty," one of its spokesman is going on a bizarre fact-free ramble about gays and witches populating DC.

Earlier this month, Family Research Council senior fellow Robert Maginnis appeared on SkyWatchTV to discuss “the occult influence on D.C. elites.”
Maginnis warned that even the most well-intentioned people who go to Washington, D.C. to work in public service are susceptible to the evil forces that he said dominate the city, citing both witchcraft and homosexuality.
“If you look around Washington, you have Dupont Circle, famous for being the center of homosexuality in Washington, you have all sorts of activities down there that are pretty souring,” he said. “You have a lot of witchcraft. You have a lot of hedonism. You have all the issues that—when I think of Sodom and Gomorrah, I often think of Washington, D.C. in the same thought.”

Hey Robert, isn't your organization (Family Research Council) situated in DC and "have a lot of power" in the Trump Administration? Just asking.

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

With the religious right and their supporters attempting to overwhelm the conversation regarding transgender equality with their lies, anecdotes, and horror stories, it is crucial that a voice be given to transgender men, women, and especially transgender youth.

Students across Texas are voicing their grave concerns about Senate Bill 6 (SB6), a bill threatening harm to transgender people across the Lone Star State. Join the movement today at glaad.org/texas.
SB6, which is similar to the widely-covered HB2 in North Carolina, bans local governments from enacting nondiscrimination ordinances that protect transgender people, or from requiring companies with city contracts from having similar protections. It also restricts restroom and locker room access for transgender people in government buildings, public schools and universities. GLAAD met with students on the ground at the University of Texas at Austin to discuss how the anti-transgender animus behind SB6 impacts their well-being as students, LGBTQ community members, or allies to their trans peers. The students also shared ways in which they are rallying support for those most targeted by SB6, like encouraging allies to safely accompany trans students to public facilities.

Monday, April 17, 2017

From The New Civil Rights Movement (NCRM) comes news of a lawsuit which poses questions the lgbtq community should ask about potential "religious liberty" laws. Would these laws also give marriage clerks the right to verbally upbraid gays and lesbians seeking licenses under the guise of "personally held religious beliefs?"

Amanda Abramovich and Samantha Brookover originally tried to marry in 2014, after their home state of West Virginia legalized same-sex marriage. At the time, the couple, high school sweethearts together now over six years, were denied a license in Gilmer County by a clerk who told them that they each needed an in-county driver's license in order to get a marriage license.

In February of 2016, seven months after the Obergefell decision that made same-sex marriage legal across the U.S., the couple applied for their marriage license a second time. According to a new lawsuit from Americans United, a religious freedom watchdog group, the couple was harassed over their marriage application.

County Deputy Clerk Debbie Allen allegedly harassed them for several minutes, calling their relationship an “abomination” and citing her religion as a reason for her objection to the couple. Another clerk allegedly joined in, calling the abuse Allen’s "religious right." Brookover’s mother called the office of County Clerk Jean Butcher to report the incident, but Butcher allegedly stood behind the actions of the deputy clerks.

"Allen launched into a tirade of harassment and disparagement. She slammed her paperwork down on her desk, screaming that the couple was an 'abomination' to God and that God would 'deal' with them," court documents claim. "Samantha was brought to tears.

According to The NCRM, Abramovich and Brookover received their license but will be suing with the help of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. No doubt if anti-lgbt organizations get hold of this case, they will attempt to spin it into one of free speech. Granted, I don't think that such an argument is plausible but obeying rule of plausibility has never been the religious right's strong suit.

Just in case there are some "folks" out there who still think that Donald Trump will be an ally for the lgbt community (and unfortunately there are), The New York Times just published a wonderful opinion on the matter which itemizes the ways Trump has done us dirty since taking office. Part of it is as follows:

. . .the nomination of several key officials, who have disparaged the L.G.B.T. community and sought to curtail the rights of its members, has exposed the narrative that Mr. Trump would be a champion of gay and transgender people as a fallacy. “It has been a catastrophe,” said Mara Keisling, the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality and a leading strategist behind a string of legal and policy victories the community achieved during the Obama administration. “Every twitch we’ve seen from the administration has been anti-L.G.B.T.”

At the Department of Justice, where former Attorney General Loretta Lynch last year delivered an impassioned speech telling transgender Americans, “We see you; we stand with you,” her successor, Jeff Sessions, wasted no time reversing course. The Justice Department in February withdrew guidance issued to schools on the treatment of transgender students, signaling that it would no longer consider their rights to be protected under a 1972 civil rights law.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which worked to expand access to health care for gay and transgender Americans, is now being led by Tom Price, who was a vocal opponent of gay rights as a congressman. The agency’s civil rights office, which oversaw regulatory changes that made it easier for transgender people to get insurance coverage for medical care, is now run by Roger Severino, an ultraconservative activist who last year accused the Obama administration of attempting to “coerce everyone, including children, into pledging allegiance to a radical new gender ideology.”

Friday, April 14, 2017

Yesterday, I posted about the Eliminate Hate campaign, a new initiative designed to bring attention to anti-lgbtq hate groups and the propaganda and actions they take against our community. This morning, an article by Reuters focused on the campaign. It also quoted a spokesman from Alliance Defending Freedom, one of the groups the campaign is targeting:

"ADF doesn't have time to respond to
organizations who do nothing more than call names, create division and
incite violence across the country in order to raise money," spokesman
Greg Scott said in a statement.

That was a nice quote, but allow me to make a few changes. Not to the quote itself, mind you. But just putting in some additions which will bring some irony to Scott's words:

ADF doesn't have time to respond to
organizations who do nothing more than call names,

The international arm of the Alliance Defending Freedom, an
anti-LGBTQ organization that has been labeled a “hate group” by the
Southern Poverty Law Center, sought to intervene in the case, arguing
that states have the right to address transgender rights based on
national contexts and tradition. ADF also argued that the court should not consider the Yogyakarta
Principles, which relate to sexual orientation and gender identity, when
determining if forced sterilization violates transgender people’s human
rights. - European Court demands end to forced sterilization of transgender people, April 11, 2017

The ADF, which has argued that removing anti-LGBT sodomy laws from
criminal codes will pave the way to same-sex marriage, has worked to
keep those laws on the books, but mostly overseas since the U.S. Supreme
Court struck down anti-sodomy laws in this country. The group has
advised anti-LGBT organizations in countries like Belize that were trying to keep the law that criminalized homosexual sex on the books. That law was declared unconstitutional by the Belize Supreme Court in 2016. In other instances, ADF leadership has defended criminalization, as when Benjamin Bull, director of ADF Global, applauded
the Indian Supreme Court’s decision in 2011 that recriminalized
homosexual sex, making it punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The
court did the right thing, Bull said, choosing to “protect society at
large rather than give in to a vocal minority of homosexual advocates.” - Southern Poverty Law Center

and
incite violence . . .

In 2014, Alliance Defending Freedom was one of several anti-lgbtq and religious right hate groups to travel to Russia and meet with Yelena Mizulina, the author of the infamous Russian anti-gay bill:

Mizulina is the head of the Duma’s committee for family, women and children and coauthor of Russia’s new ban on speech in favor of gay rights to minors. The World Congress has been one of the most vocal international defenders of
that law. The fact that the World Congress and its members are working
directly with her to plan an exchange with members of the Russian
parliament shows that the summit’s location in Moscow isn’t just an
accident of geography. In fact, as we have reported,
WCF has built up a structure of activists in Russia to push anti-gay,
anti-choice policies throughout Eastern Europe in the year’s leading up
to the 2014 summit, and it was “activists working with the World
Congress of Families” who invited Brown to speak to the Duma in favor of the adoption ban.

in order to raise money . . .

ADF Boasts A $48 Million-Plus Annual Budget And Over 3,000 “Allied Attorneys.” In
2015, ADF had a $48 million-plus annual budget. In addition to its
staff of over 30 staff lawyers, the group marshals what it calls a
“powerful global network” of over 3,100 ADF-trained “allied attorneys,”
many of whom are expected to provide at least 450 hours of pro bono
services within three years of attending one of ADF’s training programs.
ADF’s elite “Blackstone Fellows” have worked or interned in at least
nine state governments. [Media Matters, 1/25/17; Alliance Defending Freedom, accessed 2/15/17; 2/15/17; 2/15/17; Rewire, 5/13/14]

For all of his deflection, Scott cannot hide the Alliance Defending Freedom's paper trail of homophobia and bigotry.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Hate group leader and columnist Linda Harvey is what I like to call an "old school hardcore homophobe." Forget the deceptive and flowery language, because Harvey has no problem smearing, in very blunt language, the lgbtq community as pedophile sinners out to cause havoc and mayhem .

While her candor is nauseating, I consider Harvey a "useful idiot" in helping me to expose the true face of the religious right. Today, she is going to assist me demonstrating the hypocritical talking point about "gays not showing tolerance."

I'm sure you've heard of the talking point so many times that you can repeat it from memory. It goes like this "gays are always asking for tolerance for their lifestyle but won't show any for people who disagree agree with it." It's cute and very widely used semantic trick. Harvey uses it in a recent column, Jesus Rose To Save Homosexual Sinners:

People often comment on how vicious and intolerant the homosexual movement has become. “Where’s the ‘respect’ they said they wanted for everyone?”

Don't get out the weeping towel just yet. Harvey answers her own question in a way which demonstrates the hypocrisy of herself and the anti-lgbtq right in general

. . . it’s easier to understand – and even scarier – once we see what is going on at a deeper level in the anti-God orientation that produces same-sex attraction in the first place.
They repudiate heterosexuality. They resent marriage, motherhood and fatherhood as designed by God. Newly legalized homosexual couples sometimes want a family, but it will be of their own crafting, eliminating either a father or mother in the process.
It moves beyond sexual sin into a rejection of the design of God.

Seems to me that if you are whining about a group of people's intolerance to your viewpoint, the viewpoint in question shouldn't be one which smears them. But that's what we are talking about with Harvey and the religious right's viewpoint about the lgbtq community. When they whine that the lgbtq community isn't "tolerating their viewpoint," what they are actually upset at is that we aren't acting like the docile half of an abusive relationship. They cry foul because we aren't acting like the self-hating oversexed creatures they conjure up then hide behind their religious beliefs. They seem to think that we should take their demonizing language, lies, and attempts to deny us equality with good nature aplomb because they are supposedly "only expressing their religious beliefs" and we are nasty, dirty people who know that what we are doing is supposedly wrong.

Please.

No one can honestly say that any group, while being attacked and smeared, will just take the abuse in the name of "tolerance." Why should we?

To paraphrase Addison DeWitt in 'All About Eve,' I am now available for dancing on rooftoops and singing in the streets. The reason? The war against anti-lgbt propaganda just got a bit more serious:

On April 13, Media Matters For America, in coalition other organizations including the National Center for Transgender Equality, The National LGBTQ Task Force, SoulForce, The Equality Federation, and The Matthew Shepard Foundation, launched the Eliminate Hate campaign — a new effort aiming to expose, undermine, and mitigate the increasing influence and harmful impact of anti-LGBTQ hate groups while empowering and supporting local leaders and community members confronting extremism in their daily lives. The Eliminate Hate Campaign is a broad-based nationwide coalition of organizations, faith leaders, and local community members who are united in our commitment to increase media accountability and public awareness of the growing influence and extremism of anti-LGBTQ hate groups; provide resources to empower grassroots actions to combat hate and extremism; and mitigating the harm caused by discrimination and bigotry.

The Eliminate Hate campaign features wonderful site with resources which our community and allies need to support. And it makes the point about how we need to stop being so cavalier about anti-lgbt groups, spokespeople and their propaganda. If we ignore them, they aren't going away. While we make fun of them, they are working behind the scenes to make us second-class citizens. And if we march in the streets against them, they will simply plead victimhood while kissing up to legislative bodies to pass more laws against us. We are talking about groups and individuals with budgets in the millions who are dedicated to eradicating our equality, right to self-determination, and dignity. Defeating these groups will take discipline and focus, not silly and vulgar comments and definitely not attacks on religion as a whole.

No more pussyfooting around. This battle is bigger than single entities. This battle is about us, our future, and most of all, the future of our lgbt kids. The big question is are you "down?"

Bills have been introduced in 15 states nationwide this year that aim to restrict transgender people's access to sex-segregated facilities. From Minnesota to New York, many of the legislative bills awaiting votes focus specifically on schools as kids and teens find themselves at the center of a battle over bathrooms.

But many of the so-called "bathroom bills" filed across multiple states closely resemble each other. That's because many used language strongly similar to the model legislation called the Student Physical Privacy Act drafted by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a powerful conservative Christian law firm with a decades-long track record of litigating against LGBT rights. It's also been labeled a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

. . . The Southern Poverty Law Center describes the Alliance Defending Freedom mission differently: "Making life as difficult as possible for LGBT communities in the U.S. and internationally" by fighting against same-sex marriage and transgender people's access to private facilities.
In 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center designated ADF an "active hate group" in a list that includes Westboro Baptist Church, KKK chapters, and Neo-Nazi groups. In a report, SPLC cited ADF's briefs in the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas case in which the firm argued for criminalizing gay sex through sodomy laws, and claimed ADF was behind efforts to keep sodomy laws on the books in Belize.

The article primarily focuses on ADF's attack on the transgender community via "bathroom bills." However we should remember SPLC's words about how the group is doing what it can to make life difficult for the lgbt community.

Remember the SB1062 fight in Arizona in 2014? SB1062 was the so-called "religious liberty" bill which was so extreme in allowing anti-lgbt discrimination on the grounds of "religious beliefs" that it caused huge protests and then-governor Jan Brewer to cast a veto.

Using the same tactics back then it now uses to push "bathroom bills," the Alliance Defending Freedom was behind it, as well as other "religious liberty" bills. ADF even had a hand in "advising" Indiana lawmakers during that state's disastrous attempt to create a "religious liberty" law.

I would venture to say that the Alliance Defending Freedom has become one of the most, if not the most dangerous anti-lgbt organization in the nation. It's one thing to utilize petitions, junk science, and homophobic rhetoric. It's quite another to gather together and plan a behind-the-scenes physical strategy to actively create discriminatory laws and keep groups in second-class status.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Editor's post - I ran this video two years ago, but with a certain orange encrusted you-know-who in office causing religious right groups to grow eager, anxious, and hungry to cause all sorts of anti-lgbt havoc, a refresher Debunking of LGBT Myths is way overdue. It serves to remind us to not get taken in when religious right groups and their spokespeople seek to control the narrative of this so-called culture war.

Monday, April 10, 2017

Hate group American Family Association undermines fight against HIV/AIDS

For National Youth HIV and AIDS Awareness Day, anti-lgbt hate group the American Family Association decided to push some old, but reliable semantic garbage about gay men and AIDS. What the group actually achieved was to demonstrate a textbook case of the anti-lgbt propaganda which has been used to undermine the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Via an article in its fake news site, One News Now, AFA accused the lgbt community of ignoring what it claims is the root cause for HIV/AIDS:

Today is "National Youth HIV and AIDS Awareness Day," and the message should be going out that sexual behavior is spreading the disease, says a conservative activist.
"I hope that they will point out that it is the behavior that causes AIDS," observes attorney and writer Matt Barber. "That it's aberrant sexual behavior - male on male homosexual behavior - that is the catalyst for this horrible disease, that it is something that can be prevented simply by not engaging in the behavior that causes it."
Homosexual activists say the purpose of the day is to help young people make "informed and responsible decisions" about their "sexual health," and planned activities include a visit to Capitol Hill, a Facebook Live chat, and various programs and events. But a message of self-control is unlikely to get far, however, since homosexual activists downplay their own role and point to heterosexuals and drug users, and blame Ronald Reagan for failing to address the disease early on.

Yet the statistics are hard to ignore. Citing sobering statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, the website for the Human Rights Campaign story about "Awareness Day" acknowledges that HIV rates increased 87 percent among black and Latino homosexuals and bisexuals from 2005 to 2014. The rate increased 56 percent among white men during that same period.

The story blames a lack of "comprehensive sex education," "stigma" about HIV infection, and "feelings of isolation" as barriers to preventing HIV/AIDS.

The truth is that AIDS is a "gay disease" because it has disproportionately devastated the homosexual community, columnist David Benkof, who is homosexual, wrote in a February column at The Daily Caller.

Homosexual activists, he explains, claimed that "AIDS is not a gay disease" at a time when they were fighting "haters" who misunderstood the virus. He writes:

But of course AIDS is linked with homosexuality. Even today, gay men receive more than two-thirds of HIV diagnoses, and earlier in the epidemic that number was even higher. Gay men are maybe 2 percent of the American population, but 55 percent of Americans living with HIV.

Benkof goes on to admit that HIV has spread so quickly because homosexual men have multiple sexual partners.

Notice the deception here. The One News Now article cites CDC data with regards to statistics about HIV/AIDS. However, the article's author chooses to then discard the reason for the CDC statistics (lack of comprehensive sex education, "stigma about HIV infection, feelings of isolation), even though the reasons themselves come from the CDC.

It used to be back in the day when religious right groups cited negative gay statistics, they would omit the reason for these statistics if it didn't fit their ugly narrative about lgbts. Thanks to intrepid bloggers like myself, they now acknowledge the reasons, but then verbally undermine them.

This leads me to ask why should groups like the AFA even bother citing the CDC in the first place? It shows blatant dishonesty to use statistics to craft a narrative, then discard reasons behind said statistics because they refute the case you are making.

And what makes AFA's blatant lying even worse is who the organization chooses to refute the research it doesn't like. David Benkof is columnist who, as far as I know, has no background in medicine or research. A columnist whose big "add" to the article is that he is gay and published a piece in a right-wing publication.

Matt Barber is even worse. Many, myself included, have written extensively about the various ways he has attacked the lgbt community, including his vile fascination with talking about the so-called mechanics of gay sex (or as Barber puts it - "one man violently cramming his penis into another man’s lower intestine and calling it ‘love'").

Barber is a veritable treasure trove of homophobia, including when he:

implied that he was sent by God to tell gays that HIV was a punishment for sinning.

So that's who the American Family Association has to refute the Center for Disease Control information which doesn't comport with the narrative it is trying to create about gay men and HIV/AIDS - a gay columnist with no medical background and a religious right spokesman who seems to have an obsession with gay sex on the level that some like to claim that gay men have for Barbara Streisand.

It's important to realize that what the AFA spewed by way of One News Now isn't information designed to educate or spread truth. The article was created to justify prejudice and homophobia. It was created to demonize, stigmatize, and isolate, i.e. creating and exploiting conditions which the CDC has clearly said contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS.

If we are to have an honest debate about HIV/AIDS, how the AFA and other religious right groups distort information and spread propaganda must be included as one of the topics.

About Me

Alvin McEwen is 46-year-old African-American gay man who resides in Columbia, SC.
McEwen's blog, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, and writings have been mentioned by Americablog.com, Goodasyou.org, People for the American Way, PageOneQ.com, The Washington Post, Raw Story, The Advocate, Media Matters for America, Crooksandliars.com, Thinkprogress.org, Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, Melissa Harris-Perry, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, The Washington Blade, and Foxnews.com.
In addition, he is also a past contributor to Pam's House Blend,Justice For All, LGBTQ Nation, and Alternet.org. He is a present contributor to the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post,
He is the 2007 recipient of the Harriet Daniels Hancock Volunteer of the Year Award and the 2010 recipient of the Order of the Pink Palmetto from the SC Pride Movement as well as the 2009 recipient of the Audre Lorde/James Baldwin Civil Rights Activist Award from SC Black Pride. In addition, he is a three-time nominee of the Ed Madden Media Advocacy Award from SC Pride.